Typing on top of a background image

I received the following question from a friend:

If I have a paper form to fill out, I'd like to be able to scan it and use it
as a background image to a page, and type on top of it. I did manage
to insert an image of a form, but could not, even with flow-through,
type on the page.

Is there a keystroke combination to switch between the graphic and
the text? I can't find one. So... here is my workaround:

Before inserting the image, press Enter once or twice to add a couple
of blank paragraphs to the page. Then insert a page break so you have
at least one blank paragraph on each page.

Make the margins really narrow on the page to have the image (or both
pages; doesn't matter). Now insert your image, setting the anchor to
"To page" and the wrap to "In background". Adjust the image size to
fill the page.

Go to the page without the image, click in a blank paragraph, and then
use the arrow keys to move the text insertion point into a paragraph
on the page with the image. Now you can type! (It helps greatly to
have end-of-paragraph markers turned on.)

Any other ideas?

--Jean

Hi there!

I received the following question from a friend:

If I have a paper form to fill out, I'd like to be able to scan it and use it
as a background image to a page, and type on top of it. I did manage
to insert an image of a form, but could not, even with flow-through,
type on the page.

Is there a keystroke combination to switch between the graphic and
the text? I can't find one. So... here is my workaround:

Before inserting the image, press Enter once or twice to add a couple
of blank paragraphs to the page. Then insert a page break so you have
at least one blank paragraph on each page.

Make the margins really narrow on the page to have the image (or both
pages; doesn't matter). Now insert your image, setting the anchor to
"To page" and the wrap to "In background". Adjust the image size to
fill the page.

Go to the page without the image, click in a blank paragraph, and then
use the arrow keys to move the text insertion point into a paragraph
on the page with the image. Now you can type! (It helps greatly to
have end-of-paragraph markers turned on.)

Any other ideas?

Why don't you insert the image as a background
(Translated from German UI): Format -> Page, Tab Background; Drop-Down list -> graphic
In my case it worked

I thought I'd tried that, but maybe not. Will do it again, lying more attention this time. Thanks!

Jean

Yes, that worked. The problem I remember from the time I tried it
before (probably with OOo) was that I had not been able to set the
page margins to zero to make the background image fill the entire
page. (Perhaps I made a mistake then, or perhaps the software has
changed. Doesn't matter.) I did not have that problem this time (just
a warning message that it would go outside the printable area). So...
thanks for the pointer, and I will write up the proper solution for
the blog!

--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
Many printers tend to squish things or ignore anything less than 5mm from the edge of the page.  Draw can expand images to fill the entire page now but when you try to print it might chop the thin sliver from the edges.

With most documents it doesn't really matter because people seldom write right up to the edges.  You can sometimes set printers to ignore the usual 5mm gap by messing around with the printer properties.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile: